FIRST Union media release: 11 August 2015
Industrial unrest spreads as Warehouse workers reject wage offer
- Workers at the Warehouse Blenheim to strike after 30 cent wage offer
- This follows a strike at the Warehouse Manukau on Thursday
- More stores across the country to follow
Striking workers at the Warehouse Blenheim are calling on the company to live up to its own rhetoric and pay a decent wage, says FIRST Union organiser Dennis Maga.
“The striking workers are calling on the Warehouse to live up to its own rhetoric. Senior management talk a big game about decent pay and good conditions, yet many of the workers who were promised living wages are being kept at low wage levels in understaffed stores.”
“Despite constantly touting the Career Retailer Wage (CRW) as market leading, this is not the case. Workers in unionised supermarkets enjoy higher starting rates than workers at the Warehouse. This gap between rhetoric and reality is causing worker unrest,” says Maga.
“Before Warehouse workers are entitled to the CRW they must log either 5000 hours or 5 years’ service, whichever comes first. But part-time and casual workers now outnumber fulltime workers meaning that most Warehouse workers may never receive the CRW.”
“At Kmart it takes workers only two years to reach the same pay rate as the CRW.”
“With low wages and creeping casualization, is it any wonder workers are striking?”
The Blenheim strike will take place outside the Warehouse Blenheim on the corner of Kinross & Redwood Streets from midday to 1pm.
For further comment contact FIRST Union organiser Dennis Maga 021 971 070 or FIRST Union Retail and Finance Secretary Maxine Gay 021 975 580.
